H.O.M.E. Celebrates Its Upkeep and Repair Team

Thank you to everyone who helped make our 2025 Good Life Gala a success! Photos are up now on our website.

Energized and inspired by our emcee, Steve Bynum, roughly 150 of our supporters, including many of H.O.M.E.’s intergenerational residents, gathered on May 8 2025, at the Newberry Library to celebrate our longtime home repair team: Andre Barnes, Nate Foggs Sr., Johnny Jefferson, and Mike Laz.

“H.O.M.E. didn’t just save my housing. H.O.M.E. saved my life,” said panelist Bernice Frazier, a south side homeowner and grandmother who, buoyed by her experience, became a founding member of H.O.M.E.’s Community Advisory Council two years ago.  

We also heard about the importance of home repairs to the greater community from Prof. Robin Bartram of the University of Chicago. She emphasized, along with Mike, that experiences like Bernice’s are unfortunately all too common and inadequately addressed, especially in historically lower-income Black and brown neighborhoods. To fix an older person’s home also contributes to racial justice, as well as thriving families and communities.

Thanks to our generous donors, we also were able to take advantage of a matching gift opportunity. In raising nearly $10,000 during the event, we were able to receive two additional anonymous matching gifts, resulting in $30,000 last night alone for H.O.M.E.!

Thank you to all of our event sponsors and individual donors for their strong and proud support of H.O.M.E. We also want to express my gratitude to the people who work every day to realize H.O.M.E.’s vision of a Chicago in which people of all ages live together in a way that supports older adults’ connection to the larger community: our Board of Directors, led by Board Chair Christian Harris; our Community Advisory Council; and our staff.

If you missed out this year, please consider joining us next year. And sign up for our emails, where you can learn about how you can get involved with H.O.M.E. as a volunteer or donor.